‘Courts must presume innocence’

‘Courts must presume innocence’

Judge comes to rescue of a person holding two passports

22/10/2020

Mohamed Imranullah S.CHENNAI

“It is legitimate for the police, given the kind of training imparted to them, to distrust and suspect everyone but courts must always start with a presumption that all persons are honest and innocent,” the Madras High Court has said.

Justice P.N. Prakash made the observation while quashing an FIR booked against a 35-year-old clinical psychologist by Greater Chennai police for having possessed Indian and Swiss passports. The FIR had been booked in 2018 at the insistence of a Deputy Passport Officer who accused the petitioner of having made a false declaration in 2006 that he did not possess citizenship of any other country. The judge found that the petitioner had actually grown up in an orphanage in Chennai. He was given in adoption to a childless couple in January 1986.

His adopted father was an Indian national and mother a Swiss national. He grew up with his father, a nationalised bank employee, who had obtained an Indian passport for him when he was less than 10-months-old and continued to renew it periodically.

His mother had also obtained a Swiss passport for him when he was a four-year-old and continued to renew it periodically. The petitioner had never used his Swiss passport to travel to any country. As a 19-year-old in 2006, he got his Indian passport renewed after giving an undertaking that he did not hold any foreign citizenship. He was reportedly not aware of the Swiss passport, he claimed.